Director, Strategic Institutional Partnerships - Special Projects Lead

As Director of Strategic Institutional Partnerships - Special Projects Lead at OKX, you are the central point of accountability taking bespoke partnerships with banks, payment providers, wealth platforms and other financial intermediaries from signed intent to live, growing volume. You coordinate execution across Legal, Compliance, Product, Engineering, Operations, and Institutional Coverage, negotiating commercial terms, managing implementation, and ensuring regulatory alignment. Your initial market focus is the EU, where OKX operates under MiCA and MiFID II, though the role itself is global.

What you'll do

• Act as the central coordinator for commercial projects with strategic partners, ensuring timely delivery of high-scale initiatives and transferring knowledge between relationship managers
• Determine the ideal product solution and commercial setup to maximize value with partners, validating feasibility with product and local market teams
• Lead or co-lead negotiations with OKX office representatives on all commercial terms: pricing, rebates, volume commitments, SLAs, liability, exclusivity, and service scope
• Run the contract process with OKX Legal and clients' legal teams, managing negotiations and supplying commercial inputs
• Own the client relationship as a main contact for decision makers and project sponsors throughout the entire lifecycle, running steering meetings, managing expectations, and resolving escalations
• Turn commercial agreements into delivery plans with Product and Engineering, covering integration models, custody and settlement flows, fiat and stablecoin rails, and reporting; own scope, timelines, and trade-offs
• Coordinate due diligence, KYB, outsourcing assessments and regulatory notifications between OKX Compliance and clients' compliance teams to ensure regulatory requirements do not delay go-live
• Demonstrate in-depth understanding of OKX's trading systems, stablecoin and RWA ecosystem
• Plan go-live with clients, including for B2B2C partners: end-client communication, marketing support, and incentive structures during GTM campaigns; track volume and ramp against business case post-launch
• Hand over live and stable partnerships to Institutional Relationship Managers with documented terms, technical setup, open items and ramp targets; remain accountable until handover is accepted
• Use AI tools to run and coordinate several complex projects in parallel; report status, risks, and business impact to SIP leadership; keep pipeline and project records current
• Share implementation learnings to help SIP structure better deals; over time, originate and close partnerships of your own
• Help build a small delivery team of project managers and solution engineers as deal flow grows

What you bring

• 10+ years in commercial roles at banks, crypto exchanges or brokers, payment or stablecoin companies, or fintech infrastructure providers, with at least 3 years leading client-facing delivery of complex B2B or B2B2C partnerships
• Banking knowledge from the trading, wealth management or transaction banking side; you understand how banks make product decisions, onboard vendors and approve new products
• Working knowledge of crypto trading systems: order routing, API and FIX connectivity, custody models, settlement, and pre-funding and credit arrangements
• Understanding of stablecoin ecosystems: issuance, on- and off-ramps, and stablecoin use cases in payments and treasury
• Proven track record personally leading commercial negotiations and taking contracts through legal review to signature
• Experience running projects across legal, compliance, product and engineering teams on both client and your own side, taking them live
• Strong use of AI tools such as Claude and GPT for project management, stakeholder coordination, and reporting to run a large portfolio with a small team

Nice to have

• Experience on the bank or payment provider side of launching a crypto or stablecoin product
• Additional European languages
• Background in investment banking, consulting or another structured deal-execution environment
• A track record of originating, structuring, and closing your own deals

What we offer

• Competitive total compensation package
• Learning and development programs and education subsidy for your growth and development
• Various team building programs and company events
• Flexible work arrangements with initial market focus in the EU

About OKX

OKX is a leading crypto exchange and developer of OKX Wallet, giving millions access to crypto trading and decentralized applications. OKX is trusted by hundreds of large institutions seeking access to crypto markets and is part of OKG, a group bringing the value of blockchain to users worldwide through products including OKX, OKX Wallet, and OKLink.